If you don’t equate Vancouver with the fine arts,it’s time you discovered the Vancouver Art Gallery.Housed(for the time being—its new home will be built at West Georgia and Cambie)in a beautiful neoclassical courthouse located in the thick of Robson Street’s hustle-and-bustle,the Vancouver Art Gallery is the largest public art museum in Western Canada.Vancouver city sightseeing guides,Vancouver art gallery worth you visit.

History,the Permanent Exhibits and Emily Carr

The Vancouver Art Gallery made its debut in 1931 with a tidy collection of British historical paintings and only seven works by Canadian artists.Those humble beginnings were the foundation of what was to become a collection of more than 10,000 pieces.Explore the gallery’s repository of works by Vancouverites Jeff Wall,Stan Douglas,Rodney Graham,Roy Arden,Ian Wallace and others.Or take in historical landscapes,17th-century Dutch paintings and one of North America’s most important photographic collections by icons such as Ansel Adams,Cindy Sherman and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

However you spend your time at the gallery,be sure not to miss the significant collection of paintings by Canadian modernist Emily Carr,who was known for using bold colours and a style strongly influenced by local indigenous peoples to bring B.C.’s unique landscape and culture to life.In 1937,the gallery purchased Carr’s Totem Poles,Kitseukla for$400;it inherited the rest of her collection in the 1960s.Today,the Vancouver Art Gallery is home to a significant collection of paintings,sketches,ceramics,photographs and letters by one of British Columbia’s most ground-breaking artists.